What books are you currently reading? Favorite Books? Discuss - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

fluid.forty.one · 04-02-2008, 06:59 PM

I'll post some favs later tonight when my mind is off the upcoming mavs game, but I recently just picked a book that looks really interesting.

It's called "Rumspringa" about how Amish teenagers are encouraged to go out and try drugs and sex and other stuff before they turn into Amish adults... haven't figured out the reasoning behind it but it sounds interesting. I had no idea such a thing happened.

anyway my favorite book is pretty stock, catcher in the rye.

For newer stuff.. I love anything David Sedaris writes.

LonghornDub · 04-02-2008, 07:09 PM

A Practical Guide to Appellate Advocacy.

Wish I had time to read novels/for pleasure these days. I guess I do have time, technically, but then I'd have to spend less time on here. Or I could axe girlfriend time, but that wouldn't go over so well either I'd think.

ShaggyDirk · 04-02-2008, 07:33 PM

Currently reading

'mere' Christianity by CS Lewis

Suttree by Cormac McCartney

LonghornDub · 04-02-2008, 07:41 PM

Oh, and my favorite book of all time is Murder on the Orient Express.

Dr.Zoidberg · 04-02-2008, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fluid.forty.one

It's called "Rumspringa" about how Amish teenagers are encouraged to go out and try drugs and sex and other stuff before they turn into Amish adults... haven't figured out the reasoning behind it but it sounds interesting. I had no idea such a thing happened.

LOL

"Rumspringa" is Bavarian for "jump around"...

chumdawg · 04-02-2008, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fluid.forty.one

I'll post some favs later tonight when my mind is off the upcoming mavs game, but I recently just picked a book that looks really interesting.

It's called "Rumspringa" about how Amish teenagers are encouraged to go out and try drugs and sex and other stuff before they turn into Amish adults... haven't figured out the reasoning behind it but it sounds interesting. I had no idea such a thing happened.

anyway my favorite book is pretty stock, catcher in the rye.

For newer stuff.. I love anything David Sedaris writes.

David Sedaris is a fag. But of course, you knew that. I tried to read some of his stuff but just couldn't follow through with it. Not a fan of his style.

My favorite author is probably Kazuo Ishiguro. He's the guy who wrote Remains of the Day. That's a fine novel, but The Unconsoled is sheer and utter genius.

Flacolaco · 04-02-2008, 10:30 PM

I've been picking through various chapters of The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and "Life, The Universe, And Everything" are the best of the 5.

Douglas Adams was a comedic genius.

Could someone recommend anything new(er)(ish) in the way of Sci Fi/Fantasy genre?

ShaggyDirk · 04-02-2008, 10:54 PM

I heard that Murphy is reading War and Peace for the 5th time.

Ninkobei · 04-02-2008, 11:28 PM

Just finished "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell"
really a great book..I got it because it seemed like a good follow up to harry potter, but its completely different. there's still magicians and stuff but not what I've come to expect after Harry.

working on "The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction" - just a bunch of short sci-fi stories. i like it so far I can finish one in a day or two tops. kinda nice to have closure sometimes lo

fluid.forty.one · 04-03-2008, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chumdawg

David Sedaris is a fag.

lol well yeah. That's what a lot of the stories are about.. really funny humor involving that and a meth addiction and a dysfunctional family.. but I think his writing style is absolutely amazing. Very, very funny.

rabbitproof · 04-03-2008, 01:58 AM

Timely thread! I've reading the same circle or group of authors exhaustively over the last 4 years or so I've been trying out new authors this year. I normally read stuff like Henry Miller, Bukowski, Palahniuk, Kundera, GGM, F.Doystovsky, Kerouac and others.. love it all but need to branch out after a few years. Nothing new has convinced me to read a second novel by that author thus far.

I just picked up 2 books today..

Albert Camus - "the Plague"
Sartre - "No Exit & 3 Other Plays"

No idea how they will go. Any recos would be dope.

I'm also continuously reading "Dallas-Mavs" by Everybody Here.

u2sarajevo · 04-03-2008, 06:57 AM

I'm currently reading Twilight. The reason I started was because my oldest daughter has a friend that is into the series so I know she is going to want to read it after we finish HP (currently at the end of OOTP with the girls). But it's actually pretty interesting reading. I'm kind of curious about the other 2 books now.

Once I finish Twilight I have 2 books lined up (Suttree and Children of Hurin) but am glad to have this thread for some suggestions beyond those.

Murphy3 · 04-03-2008, 12:14 PM

I'm currently reading Terry Goodkind's most famous work.. Sword of Truth or somesuch. I'm on book 7 of 11 or somesuch.

dalmations202 · 04-03-2008, 12:42 PM

Just finished the Nephilim Series, By: L.A. Marzulli

about to get the new Joel Rosenberg book Dead Heat, and I highly recommend all of his books starting with the Last Jihad... very good reading

Smiles · 04-04-2008, 04:24 PM

"A Grief Observed" and "The Problem of Pain" both by C.S. Lewis.

"Small Animal Clinical Nutrtion" (by Lon Lewis & Mark Morris)

"Your Cat" Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM, Esq.

Evilmav2 · 04-19-2008, 02:26 AM

I just re-read Robert Heinlein's 'Farnham's Freehold'- possibly the best of his 'ugly books'- because last weekend I had to buy something at the airport to read whilst enduring a 3 hour flight delay, and I have to say that it was just as visionary and jarring as I remember it having been when I first read it at the age of 16 or 17...

Dirkadirkastan · 04-19-2008, 02:36 AM

Books? What's a books?

u2sarajevo · 04-19-2008, 09:18 AM

I am reading Outer Dark by McCarthy right now. What a disturbing tale it is so far. The main male character is ShaggyDirk reincarnated.

sike · 04-19-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaggyDirk

Currently reading

'mere' Christianity by CS Lewis

Lewis's greatest work...maybe not his best...but certainly his most important.

sike · 04-19-2008, 09:28 AM

Exegetical Fallacies - D.A. Carson
The Gift of Prophecy - Wayne Grudem
A Bio on C.H. Spurgeon
Proverbs and 1 and 2 Thessalonians have been under recent attention for my Biblical Reading...

I recently purchased King's "IT" and "The Stand" (I read VERY little fiction, but wanted to see the hype about King...just started "IT" and everything is sooooo wordy) Any King fans? What is your favorite work by him?

u2sarajevo · 04-19-2008, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sike

I recently purchased King's "IT" and "The Stand" (I read VERY little fiction, but wanted to see the hype about King...just started "IT" and everything is sooooo wordy) Any King fans? What is your favorite work by him?

I used to be at the local bookstore upon every release of King. I don't read him anymore. The Stand is, in my opinion, his best work. I will occasionally read it, but it's been a few years since I have. The Dark Tower series is also a consuming tale that will get you hooked.

You picked 2 winners though. But like I said, of those 2 I find The Stand the best.

sike · 04-19-2008, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

I used to be at the local bookstore upon every release of King. I don't read him anymore.

may I ask why?

Big Boy Laroux · 04-19-2008, 11:13 AM

Chum, what does Sedaris' sexual preference have to with his quality as an author? People like his stuff (me included - haven't read all his stuff, but i've liked what i've read). And i bet you could have worded that in a less offensive way... I don't think he's god's gift to written humor like some people do (he is kind of overrated, and we all know God hates gay people, so he can't be god's gift...), but I do like his stuff.

I just finished "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" by Michael Lewis (guy who wrote "Moneyball"). Pretty Good. It's about the evolution of the Left Tackle position in the NFL, and how that trickles down and affects the life of one Memphis inner-city kid who appears to have been born to play the position. I'd recommend it for any football fan. It's a few years old (published in 2006, i believe). The kid in question (Michael Oher) is about to start his senior season at Ole Miss.

Big Boy Laroux · 04-19-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

Could someone recommend anything new(er)(ish) in the way of Sci Fi/Fantasy genre?

hmmmm, i've heard a lot about this series that just wrapped up - it's kind of new - been out for a few years. About a kid magician or something. Jerry Porter? i think that's it. i don't normally keep up with that genre...

u2sarajevo · 04-19-2008, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sike

may I ask why?

Well..... I am just a fan of his older material. When he became a publishing machine the excitement wore off a bit. I just stopped reading new material... around the time bag of bones was released. I actually still have that book but have never read it. Maybe I will now.

Salem's Lot, The Shining, Cujo, Misery, Carrie..... all gripping stories though.

sike · 04-19-2008, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

Well..... I am just a fan of his older material. When he became a publishing machine the excitement wore off a bit. I just stopped reading new material... around the time bag of bones was released. I actually still have that book but have never read it. Maybe I will now.

Salem's Lot, The Shining, Cujo, Misery, Carrie..... all gripping stories though.

thanks bro....I'm a bit overwhelmed with The Stand and IT right now...they are huge...

sike · 04-19-2008, 01:56 PM

I really don't read much fiction....there is too much good non-fiction out there...

Five-ofan · 04-19-2008, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

I used to be at the local bookstore upon every release of King. I don't read him anymore. The Stand is, in my opinion, his best work. I will occasionally read it, but it's been a few years since I have. The Dark Tower series is also a consuming tale that will get you hooked.

You picked 2 winners though. But like I said, of those 2 I find The Stand the best.

i just got into the dark tower series(im on book 4 now). the gunslinger was terrible, the drawing of the three was decent, the waste lands was good and wizard and the glass has been very good so far.

SaltwaterChaffy · 04-19-2008, 08:42 PM

currently reading "The Complete Calvin & Hobbes" and "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets."

I recently finished "Hagakure" and "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs"

ShaggyDirk · 04-19-2008, 10:56 PM

uh huh

mcsluggo · 04-21-2008, 04:11 PM

I read alot of porn.

I used to read alot of real books. A whole lot. And then I got the internet, and got an 8-6 job... now I read alot of porn.

(I recently finished "the sunne and the splendor" ---historical fiction about the war of the roses... I finished the first 3/4 of it fairly quickly, and then it took me like a year to put the final nails in the coffin. I read alot of porn over that tiome period, though.)

ShaggyDirk · 04-21-2008, 04:36 PM

uh huh

mcsluggo · 04-22-2008, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilmav2

I just re-read Robert Heinlein's 'Farnham's Freehold'- possibly the best of his 'ugly books'- because last weekend I had to buy something at the airport to read whilst enduring a 3 hour flight delay, and I have to say that it was just as visionary and jarring as I remember it having been when I first read it at the age of 16 or 17...

I used to love Heinlein (back when I read), and if that book is the one I think it is... i hated it!!! (is it the one where there are a couple of guys that somehow get zapped to the future, and when they get there there has been a nuke war that has devistated the northern hemispheres and the southern hemispheres became totalitarian enslavers of the north (where everyone ended up 3 foot tall)?

I thought it was incredibly dull and every point was sooooo overplayed!!! granted, I probably read it when I was 15, but that book hit every point it had to make with 16 howitzers. And this is even relative to Heinlein's OTHER books, because lets face it, even though I used to really like the guy's writing overall (and prably still would, if I read any of it again) subtlety has never been the man's strong point. If anything he's has grabbed straight forward, non-subtlety as his centerpiece strategy and run with it... and even GIVEN that set-up this book was too over the top to be enjoyable to me. I don't remember for sure, but I actually think this book was the last book of his I read... and it kinda killed the "romance" for me.

It was almost like a Saturday Nite Live skit making fun of heinlein. All the characters were even MORE superman than usual, except the one token flaw he blatently tried to inject into each character to "humanize" them, but even in that case they tended to be flaws like "I just like broccoli too damn much...I can't help it, dammit all to hell!"

now... take this all with a grain of salt, because I think I read the book when I was AT MOST sixteen, and that would place it almost a quarter century ago...

mcsluggo · 04-22-2008, 08:18 AM

btw... what defines Heinlein's "ugly books"?

Evilmav2 · 04-22-2008, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

I used to love Heinlein (back when I read), and if that book is the one I think it is... i hated it!!! (is it the one where there are a couple of guys that somehow get zapped to the future, and when they get there there has been a nuke war that has devistated the northern hemispheres and the southern hemispheres became totalitarian enslavers of the north (where everyone ended up 3 foot tall)?

I thought it was incredibly dull and every point was sooooo overplayed!!! granted, I probably read it when I was 15, but that book hit every point it had to make with 16 howitzers. And this is even relative to Heinlein's OTHER books, because lets face it, even though I used to really like the guy's writing overall (and prably still would, if I read any of it again) subtlety has never been the man's strong point. If anything he's has grabbed straight forward, non-subtlety as his centerpiece strategy and run with it... and even GIVEN that set-up this book was too over the top to be enjoyable to me. I don't remember for sure, but I actually think this book was the last book of his I read... and it kinda killed the "romance" for me.

It was almost like a Saturday Nite Live skit making fun of heinlein. All the characters were even MORE superman than usual, except the one token flaw he blatently tried to inject into each character to "humanize" them, but even in that case they tended to be flaws like "I just like broccoli too damn much...I can't help it, dammit all to hell!"

now... take this all with a grain of salt, because I think I read the book when I was AT MOST sixteen, and that would place it almost a quarter century ago...

Hahaha... Farnham's Freehold is certainly an easy book to dislike, as Heinlein wrote it during his heavy-handed anti-government, bomb-shelter building survivalist phase, and it features some genuinely unlikable lead characters (Farnham is a jerk, his son is a whiner and a racist, Farnham's wife is lush who causes her son to be castrated, etc... ), and ridiculously uncomfortable themes (orientalist despotism, human breeding programs, cannibalism, incest, and the benefits of nudism), but perversely, I find that as part of it's charm. The book attempts to address some pretty big themes in a completely over the top Heinlein kind of way, but the book still reads like the shorter, pulpier works of his early career, rather than the often brilliant, but far longer winded works of his later career. All in all, I find the book to be something of a bombastic, amusing anachronism, and I had a good chuckle about the fact that it was one of the only semi-decent science fiction works that I could find in an airport bookstore the other week...

As for what I am currently reading... I just re-read Daniel Yergin's The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, and I just ordered a copy of George David Smith's Wisdom from the Robber Barons: Enduring Business Lessons from Rockefeller, Morgan, and the First Industrialists that looked interesting on Amazon...

Evilmav2 · 04-22-2008, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

btw... what defines Heinlein's "ugly books"?

Well, FF certainly qualifies... I will fear no evil also represents something of a stinker effort from Heinlein, and some of his later books reprise the annoying habit that Heinlein started in Stranger in a Strange Land of starting out a work with a tight, compelling narrative and then ending it with long-winded, didacticly mystical gobbly-gook chapters, so even though his later works are well worth reading, and are and were worthy of recieving critical praise, I would consider some of them to be 'ugly', and are somewhat unsatisfying reads...

nikeball · 04-22-2008, 09:15 AM

readings for March/April..

Finishing up Paladin of Souls (Hugo/Nebula winner for 2004)
Hope to start on The Fountainhead soon and then probably will read Atlas Shrugged.

Every two months I try to read
one fantasy/scifi book
one classic
one contemporary
sometimes i will throw in a non-fiction book.

Where do yall purchase your books? I love Half-price books..can get great deals for like-new books sometimes..and Borders (they always have 20-40% coupons).

I used to purchase books online but I hate paying for shipping...and libraries usually never have what I want to read.

u2sarajevo · 05-14-2008, 05:12 PM

Just wanted to put a plug in for an awesome book that I just finished reading. McCarthy has quickly become one of my favorite authors.... It's called The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.

Awesome book! I'm going to finish the Twilight series next with Eclipse so I'll be ready for the final book in August. And yes, I read them. And yes, they are really fluffy on the romance side but the supernatural side(which is the majority) is really intriguing. I started with Twilight because my oldest daughters "best" friend has read them so she wants to read them. So I read it first after researching and finding out it is actually intended for teens+. So she won't be reading it with our consent for a couple of years, but at least I got to enjoy it. (that sounds awful, I know.....)

ShaggyDirk · 05-14-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

Just wanted to put a plug in for an awesome book that I just finished reading. McCarthy has quickly become one of my favorite authors.... It's called The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.

Awesome book! I'm going to finish the Twilight series next with Eclipse so I'll be ready for the final book in August. And yes, I read them. And yes, they are really fluffy on the romance side but the supernatural side(which is the majority) is really intriguing. I started with Twilight because my oldest daughters "best" friend has read them so she wants to read them. So I read it first after researching and finding out it is actually intended for teens+. So she won't be reading it with our consent for a couple of years, but at least I got to enjoy it. (that sounds awful, I know.....)

Such a simple story frame, yet so complex, gritty, and personal (especially for fathers)

ShaggyDirk · 05-14-2008, 05:51 PM

By the way, I really like Suttree but I have not had the time to really concentrate on it. It requires undivided attention at all times.